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that the Knights of St. John, along with the nobility and merchants during the seventeenth
century in Malta had built up collections of art. Seventeenth century Italian painter Mattia Preti is
still today the most represented artist in the National Museum of Fine Arts.
Bonello established relationships with Italian scholars such as Roberto Longhi, who helped
the museum in terms of attributions and acquisitions. In 1928, Roberto Longhi, for example, also
presented to the museum a small painting attributed to Alessandro Magnasco representing a
‘Penitent Friar’, as a sign of his good relationship with Malta.
Bonello made several visits to Italy in order to help him with setting up the Fine Arts section
within the museum, and in order to gain more knowledge on the attribution of works and
restoration. His pro-Italian attitude, reflecting the political environment of the time, can be seen
in his acquisitions and also in his writings. Because of his Italian sympathies and his close
association with the Partito Nazzionale before the War, Vincenzo Bonello was dismissed from
service by the British authorities in February 1937. He was one of the internees who was arrested
in 1940 and deported to an internment camp in Uganda in 1942 during World War II. (Vella,
1997).
The curator of the Fine Arts section Antonio Sciortino (1879-1947)
Before Italy’s entry in World War II, Maltese sculptor Antonio Sciortino, was a director in the
British Academy in Rome (Italy). In 1936, the Italian government closed down the British
Academy and Sciortino left Italy and returned to Malta. He became Curator of the Fine Arts
collection in Malta’s National Museum in 1937, succeeding Vincenzo Bonello and it is said that
he managed to save much of the museum’s treasures (Vella, 2000).
Shortly before his death in 1947, Antonio Sciortino bequeathed a considerable number of his
art works, including several masterpieces, to the people of Malta, many of which are today
housed at the National Museum of Fine Arts.
The transfer of the Fine Arts collection to De Sousa Palace in 1974
The year that Malta became a Republic in 1974, it was decided that the Fine Arts section was to
be transferred to a larger location and it was thus opened officially as the National Museum of
Fine Arts. The present location is a Baroque palace planned around a central courtyard and
dominated by its monumental Rococo staircase. The Palace was originally designed by the Maltese
architect Andrea Belli in 1761 for the wealthy dignitary Raimondo del Sousa. It was later
occupied by Napoleonic forces in 1798, and between 1821 and 1961 it served as the official
residence of the Commander in Chief of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean. Most of the
collection on display in the 1970s is still on display today and it presents paintings from the late
medieval period to the contemporary, as well as silverware, furniture and statuary in marble,
bronze and wood.
The National Museum of Fine Arts today
The Fine Arts Collection is currently housed on two floors. On the first floor, in the ‘piano
nobile’, there are artworks from the late Medieval to the High Baroque with a focus on
seventeenth century Baroque paintings by artists such as Italian painter Guido Reni and by the
Caravaggisti, such as works by Dutch painter Mattias Stom and by French painter Jean Valentin
de Boulogne. A corpus of works by Italian Baroque painter Mattia Preti and a number of
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